United States District Court, S.D. Alabama, Southern Division
ORDER
KRISTI
K. DUBOSE, CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This
matter is before the Court on Petitioner's Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 59(e) Motion to Alter or Amend the
Court's Judgment denying his Petition for Writ of Habeas
Corpus.[1](Docs. 31, 43). For the reasons discussed
herein, the motion is DENIED.
I.
Procedural Background.
On
January 8, 2019, the undersigned entered an Order (doc. 29)
and Judgment (doc. 30) denying Matthew Reeves's Petition
for Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254,
in its entirety. (Docs. 1, 24). The ruling did grant a
certificate of appealability (“COA”) on one
presented issue, Claim 3.b., whether counsel rendered
ineffective assistance for failing to hire an expert to
investigate his intellectual disability.
Reeves
now moves for reconsideration of three specifically
enumerated aspects of the January 8 Order and Judgement.
Reeves requests the following relief: (1) reconsideration of
the finding that Reeves is not intellectually disabled under
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), Claim 1;
(2) reconsideration that the Alabama Court of Criminal
Appeals reasonably rejected Reeves's claim that he
received ineffective assistance of counsel during the penalty
phase, Claim 3.c.; and (3) reconsideration that the Alabama
Court of Criminal Appeals reasonably rejected Reeves's
juror misconduct claim at the pleading stage without an
evidentiary hearing, Claim 4. (Docs. 31, 43). Alternatively,
Reeves requests that if Rule 59(e) relief is not granted,
that the Court expand its Certificate of Appealability to
include the presented issues to the Court of Appeals.
(Id.).
II.
Legal Standard for Motion to Reconsider.
The
Eleventh Circuit has summarized the limited scope of relief
that is available to a litigant under Rule 59(e):
"The only grounds for granting [a Rule 59] motion are
newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or
fact." In re Kellogg, 197 F.3d 1116, 1119 (11th
Cir. 1999). "[A] Rule 59(e) motion [cannot be used] to
relitigate old matters, raise argument or present evidence
that could have been raised prior to the entry of
judgment." Michael Linet, Inc. v. Village of
Wellington, Fla., 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005).
Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir.
2007); see also Jacobs v. Tempur-Pedic Int'l,
Inc., 626 F.3d 1327, 1344 (11th Cir. 2010)
("Reconsidering the merits of a judgment, absent a
manifest error of law or fact, is not the purpose of Rule
59."); Stone v. Wall, 135 F.3d 1438, 1442 (11th
Cir. 1998) ("The purpose of a Rule 59(e) motion is not
to raise an argument that was previously available, but not
pressed."); Hughes v. Stryker Sales Corp., 2010
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64439, 2010 WL 2608957, *2 (S.D. Ala. June
28, 2010) (rejecting notion that motions to reconsider
"are appropriate whenever the losing party thinks the
District Court got it wrong"). "They are neither
appeal substitutes nor a 'dry run' to test arguments
in anticipation of a forthcoming appeal." Lee,
2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107328, 2012 WL 3137901, at *2.
To
prevail on a motion to reconsider, '[t]he losing party
must do more than show that a grant of the motion might have
been warranted; he must demonstrate a justification for
relief so compelling that the court was required to grant the
motion.' Maradiaga v. United States, 679 F.3d
1286, 1291 (11th Cir. 2012) (citations and internal marks
omitted)." Lee v. Thomas, No. CIV.A.
10-0587-WS-M, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107328, 2012 WL 3137901,
at *2 n.1 (S.D. Ala. Aug. 1, 2012) (Steele, J.).
III.
Analysis.
Turning
to Reeves's current motion, it is imperative to keep in
mind the posture of this case - that is, Reeves petitioned
this Court for habeas relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
2254. This statute “imposes important limitations on
the power of federal courts to overturn the judgments of
state courts in criminal cases.” Shoop v.
Hill, 139 S.Ct. 504, 506, 202 L.Ed.2d 461 (2019). A
federal habeas court "may not issue the writ simply
because that court concludes in its independent judgment that
the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established
federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Greene v.
Upton, 644 F.3d 1145, 1154 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation
omitted). Rather, "[t]o obtain habeas relief a state
prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the
claim being presented in the federal court was so lacking in
justification that there was an error well understood and
comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for
fairminded disagreement." Evans v. Secretary,
Dep't of Corrections, 703 F.3d 1316, 1326 (1th Cir.
2013) (citations omitted). Under § 2254(d) deference,
"only if there is no possibility fairminded jurists
could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts
with the Supreme Court's precedents may relief be
granted." Johnson v. Secretary, DOC, 643 F.3d
907, 910 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted); see also Holsey v. Warden, Georgia
Diagnostic Prison, 694 F.3d 1230, 1257 (11th Cir. 2012)
("if some fairminded jurists could agree with the state
court's decision, although others might disagree, federal
habeas relief must be denied") (citation omitted).
"If this standard is difficult to meet, that is because
it was meant to be." Holsey, 694 F.3d at 1257
(citation omitted); see also Loggins v. Thomas, 654
F.3d 1204, 1220 (11th Cir. 2011) ("[T]he deference due
is heavy and purposely presents a daunting hurdle for a
habeas petitioner to clear."). "Section 2254(d)
reflects the view that habeas corpus is a guard against
extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,
not a substitute for ordinary error correction through
appeal." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 102-03
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
It is
under this highly deferential standard that Reeves's
habeas petition was denied.
A.
Reconsideration of Intellectual Disability under
Atkins.
Petitioner
Reeves's first ground for seeking relief under Rule 59(e)
relates to Claim 1 of his habeas petition. In his habeas
petition, Reeves alleges that he is intellectually disabled
and his capital sentence, thus, violates the Eighth Amendment
pursuant to the holding of Atkins v. Virginia, 536
U.S. 304 (2002). The record reveals that Reeves received IQ
scores within a standard error of measurement
(“SEM”) range of 63 to 78, that the experts
presented conflicting opinions at the Rule 32 hearing as to
whether Reeves is intellectually disabled, and the state
court credited the opinion of Dr. King over Dr. Goff in
concluding that Reeves is not intellectually disabled. In the
January 8 Order, this Court found that Reeves failed to carry
his burden of proving that the state court's
determination was “contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,
as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States” or that the decision “was based on an
unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the
evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28
U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) and (2). Relying primarily on
Moore v. Texas, for the first time, Reeves asserts
in his motion for reconsideration that the Court's
rejection of his Atkins claim rested on manifest
errors of law and fact because it impermissibly relied on
extrinsic factors unrelated to determining intellectual
functioning to disregard the lower SEM range of IQ
scores[2] and emphasized Reeve's perceived
strengths in adaptive functioning over the acknowledged
deficits.
In
Moore, the Supreme Court vacated a Texas Criminal
Court of Appeals judgment which determined Moore was not
intellectually disabled based on evidentiary factors
announced in Ex parte Briseno, 135 S.W.3d 1 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2004), rather than current medical diagnostic
standards. Moore v. Texas, 137 S.Ct. 1039.
Briseno utilized an outdated definition and
diagnostic standard for assessing intellectual disability
from the 1992 edition of the American Association on Mental
Retardation's (“AAMR”) manual. The
Briseno test required that adaptive deficits be
related to intellectual functioning deficits and identified
seven evidentiary factors (“without citation to any
medical or judicial authority”) relevant to determining
intellectual disability. 137 S.Ct. at 1046-47. The Texas
appellate court utilized the Briseno factors in
determining Moore failed to prove significant subaverage
intellectual functioning with IQ scores of 78 and 74
(rejecting 5 of 7 IQ tests as unreliable). The appellate
court “discounted the lower end of the standard-error
range associated with” the score of 74
“observ[ing] that Moore's history of academic
failure, and the fact that he took the test while
‘exhibit[ing] withdrawn and depressive behavior' on
death row might have hindered his performance.”
Id. at 1047. The appellate court then concluded
Moore failed to prove he suffered significant limitations in
adaptive functioning due to Moore's adaptive strengths,
which included living on the streets, playing pool and mowing
lawns for money, committing the crime in a sophisticated way
and then fleeing, testifying and representing himself at
trial, and developing skills in prison. Id. The
Court granted certiorari to determine whether the appellate
court's adherence to superseded medical standards and
reliance on Briseno complied with the Eighth
Amendment and Court precedent and held it did not.
The
Moore Court found the appellate court considered
“the presence of other sources of imprecision in
administering the [IQ] test to [Reeves]” and noted that
such unique factors “cannot narrow the test-specific
standard-error range” and the appellate court was
required based on the SEM range “to move on to consider
Moore's adaptive functioning”. Id. at
1049-50. The Court further concluded that the appellate court
overemphasized Moore's perceived adaptive strengths in
determining he did not suffer significant adaptive deficits.
In particular, the Court identified traumatic experiences in
Moore's life which the Texas appellate court discounted,
like childhood abuse and academic failure, that clinicians
consider “risk factors” and rely on in
determining intellectual disability. Similarly, the Court
found the appellate court “departed from clinical
practice by requiring Moore to show that his adaptive
deficits were not related to ‘a personality
disorder'”, id. at 1051, when the medical
community acknowledges the coexistence of personality
disorders and mental health issues in the intellectually
disabled. Lastly, the Court viewed the Briseno
factors as “exceedingly subjective” and deemed
such factors as “lay perceptions of intellectual
disability.” Id. In rejecting the
Briseno factors, the Court indicated that no other
state legislature approved the Briseno factors or
anything similar and that Texas itself failed to follow
Briseno in contexts other than the death penalty.
The Court maintained that while states have flexibility in
enforcing Atkins, they do not have ‘unfettered
discretion' or ‘complete autonomy to define
intellectual disability as they wished'. Id. at
1053 (quoting Hall, 134 S.Ct. at 1998-99).
Specifically, “[t]he medical community's current
standards supply one constraint on States' leeway in this
area.” Id. The Court thus held that:
By rejecting the habeas court's application of medical
guidance and clinging to the standard it laid out in
Briseno, including the wholly nonclinical
Briseno factors, the CCA failed adequately to inform
itself of the “medical community's diagnostic
framework, ” Hall, 572 U.S., at___-___, 134
S.Ct. 1986, 2000, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007, 1025. Because
Briseno pervasively infected the CCA's analysis,
the decision of that court cannot stand.
Id. at 1053.
Notably,
the 2017 decision of Moore was decided after the
trial and appellate court determined Reeves was not
intellectually disabled in 2009 and 2016, respectively, and
cannot be considered “clearly established law”
pursuant to § 2254(d)(1). See Shoop v. Hill, __
U.S., 139 S.Ct. 504, 502, 202 L.Ed.2d 461, 465 (2019)
(“The Court of Appeals' reliance on Moore
was plainly improper under § 2254(d)(1), and we
therefore vacate that decision and remand so that Hill's
claim regarding intellectual disability can be evaluated
based solely on holdings of this Court that were clearly
established at the relevant time.”). Consequently,
Reeves's reliance on Moore v. Texas is misplaced
and improper. Nevertheless, Reeves contends that
Moore is applicable because the holding did not
establish a new rule of law but “merely applied the law
that the Supreme Court established in Hall.”
(Doc. 31-1 at 7, n.2). Such suggestion, however, extends
Hall (and Atkins) beyond what the case(s)
actually held, and this Court is bound to “determine
whether its conclusions can be sustained based strictly on
legal rules that were clearly established in the decisions of
[the Supreme] Court at the relevant time.”
Shoop, 139 S.Ct. at 509. Accordingly, this Court is
required to analyze Reeves's habeas petition and this
motion based on that which was “clearly
established” at the time the Alabama Court of Criminal
Appeals rejected Reeves's intellectual disability claim.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
Based
on the laws in place at the time of the state court's
decision, denial of Reeves's intellectual disability
claim does not rest on manifest errors of law or fact and
Reeves's arguments are simply a rehash of old arguments.
There is no “binding Supreme Court precedent, [that]
only IQ tests that account for the SEM are relevant
to the first prong [in determining significant subaverage
intellectual functioning.]”[3] (Doc. 31-1 at 9-10)
(emphasis added). Nor did federal law exist condemning
consideration of adaptive strengths when evaluating adaptive
functioning. Rather, the law at the time of Reeves's
decision instructed that:
[t]he legal determination of intellectual disability is
distinct from a medical diagnosis, but it is informed
by the medical community's diagnostic framework.
Atkins itself points to the diagnostic criteria
employed by psychiatric professionals. And the professional
community's teachings are of particular help in this
case, where no alternative definition of intellectual
disability is presented and where this Court and the States
have placed substantial reliance on the expertise of the
medical profession.
Hall, 572 U.S. 701, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 2000, 188
L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014) (emphasis added); see also
Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 413, 122 S.Ct. 867,
151 L.Ed.2d 856 (2002) (“[T]he science of psychiatry .
. . informs but does not control ultimate legal
determinations . . .”). Indeed, the record reflects
that the state court relied on the expertise of medical
professionals, namely Drs. Goff and King, in determining
Reeves is not intellectually disabled. Both doctors testified
at the Rule 32 hearing as to their experience, testing
procedures, and provided a diagnostic opinion based on
clinical judgment. In accordance with the law at the time,
the state court properly recognized that Reeves's IQ fell
within “a range of scores on either side of the
recorded score” and that his “true IQ score
lies” somewhere within this SEM range. Hall,
572 U.S. at 712-13 (“The professionals who design,
administer, and interpret IQ tests have agreed, for years
now, that IQ test scores should be read not as a single fixed
number but as a range.”). Based on this SEM range, as
instructed by the established law at the time, Reeves was
allowed to “present additional evidence of intellectual
disability, including testimony regarding adaptive
deficits.” Id. at 713. The findings of these
tests were interpreted by expert medical professionals. The
medical experts, however, offered opposing diagnoses based on
their clinical judgment, [4] and the court credited Dr. King's
testimony over Dr. Goff's.[5] Consequently, it cannot be said
that the state court's decision (centered on Dr.
King's clinical judgment that Reeves is not
intellectually disabled (and that he does not suffer
significant subaverage intellectual functioning nor
substantial deficits in adaptive functioning)) was contrary
to establish federal law or based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented
in the state court proceeding.[6]
Reeves
has failed to establish newly discovered evidence or manifest
errors of law or fact. At best, Reeves reiterates arguments
already made, which the Court already rejected. Rule 59(e) is
not an appropriate vehicle to “relitigate old matters,
raise argument or present evidence that could have been
raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Frantz v.
Walled, 513 Fed.Appx. 815, 822 (11th Cir. 2013). In
short, Reeves has not set forth any basis for Rule 59(e)
relief, and his motion is denied as to this claim.
Additionally, Reeves has failed to put forth a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right; thus, a
Certificate of Appealability is not warranted as to this
claim. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 483-484, 120
S.Ct. 1595, 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000).
B.
Reconsideration of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel during
Penalty Phase.
Petitioner
Reeves's second ground for seeking relief relates to
Claim 3.c. of his habeas petition. Reeves contends that the
Court incorrectly concluded that trial counsel's decision
not to hire a mitigation expert was not objectively
unreasonable under Strickland and that he was not
prejudiced by the decision. Specifically, Reeves argues that
the Court should reconsider its holding that counsel was not
ineffective during the penalty phase of the trial for three
reasons: (1) that evidence of the reason for trial
counsel's decision is not necessary to establish
ineffective assistance of counsel; (2) that ample evidence
was presented that established counsel did not make an
informed or strategic decision; (3) that counsel possessed
records concerning Reeves's background does not preclude
a finding of deficient performance. These claims have
previously been presented to the Court through Reeves's
§2254 habeas petition and appear to be nothing more than
an attempt to reargue previously dismissed claims. Arthur
v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343-44 (11th Cir. 2007)
(“A Rule 59(e) motion cannot be used to relitigate old
matters….”). The Court finds that relief was
properly denied as reasoned in its January 8 Order but
briefly addresses Reeves's claims for the sake of
clarity.
To
start, Reeves contends that the Court “contorted the
Strickland test when it held Reeves must provide
evidence that ‘sheds . . . light on the reasoning
behind counsel's actions' to prevail on his
ineffective-assistance claim” and “that only
‘evidence . . . that the complained of actions were not
the result of reasonable strategy' can rebut
Strickland's presumption of
reasonableness.” (Doc. 31-1 at 13, 15) (quoting the
January 8 Order at p. 44). These misquotations of the January
8 Order are out of context and ignore the fundamental
analysis conducted therein - that is that Reeves failed to
carry his burden of showing that there was “[no]
reasonable argument that counsel satisfied
Strickland's deferential standard.”
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 105, 131 S.Ct.
770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). In fact, Reeves misconstrues
this Court's review standard pursuant to §2254 in
his motion to reconsider.
Importantly,
under AEDPA, federal courts are prohibited from granting
habeas relief for any claim adjudicated on the merits on
state court, unless one of the exceptions listed in §
2254(d) applies. Relevant to Reeves's claim, is
§2254(d)(1)'s exception that this Court is permitted
to grant habeas relief if the state court decision “was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established federal law.” 28 U.S.C. §
2254(d)(1). The applicable federal law in question here is
Strickland. To establish a claim of ineffective
assistance of trial counsel under Strickland, the
petitioner "must show both deficient performance by
counsel and prejudice." Premo v. Moore, 562
U.S. 115, 121, 131 S.Ct. 733, 178 L.Ed.2d 649 (2011)
(internal quotes omitted). "To establish deficient
performance, a person challenging a conviction must show that
counsel's representation fell below an objective standard
of reasonableness," and "[a] court considering a
claim of ineffective assistance must apply a strong
presumption that counsel's representation was within the
wide range of reasonable professional assistance."
Id. (internal quotes omitted). "The question is
whether an attorney's representation amounted to
incompetence under prevailing professional norms, not whether
it deviated from best practices or common custom."
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 105, 131 S.Ct.
770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) (internal quotes omitted). To
establish prejudice for purposes of Stri ...